The present invention relates generally to a fan system and more particularly to a fan system which allows for cleaning without the need for removal of the blade from the motor shaft or motor from its mount.
Air circulators, or fans, are used to cool people in small to large industrial plants. If the plant is not air conditioned, health becomes an issue on hot and humid days when employees are not cooled using air circulating fans. Air circulators are spread throughout the facility to the point where there might easily be 2,000 to 3,000 or more fans in a large facility.
Guards and blades of these fans rapidly become dirty in an industrial plant. Dirty guards and blades cause the fans to lose efficiency, i.e. blow less air. Eventually the motor overloads possibly causing early motor burn-out. Further, when plant personnel see the dirt on the fan guard and blade, they sense that the fan is blowing "dirty air" towards them. Thus, the fans are cleaned frequently.
It has been an extremely costly problem for the large industrial plants to clean thousands of fans a minimum of once a year. Often one department within an automotive or other large industrial plant could spend in excess of $100,000 per year cleaning their air circulators. Fan cleaning has thus developed into an extremely expensive maintenance "nightmare."
Present practice is for maintenance personnel to perform either one of two cleaning procedures. In one procedure, the maintenance personnel remove the fan head assembly (guard, blade, and motor) from the mount. Many of the fans are mounted high in the ceiling or structural steelwork and thus this procedure is somewhat difficult. The head assembly is moved to the plant wash area where the head assembly is cleaned manually with a conventional high pressure steam/hot water/soap spray. After air drying, the cleaned head assembly is reinstalled on the mount. Typically, the reinstalled fan must be re-aimed 2 or 3 times to get it "just right. " This process must be repeated for each fan. As stated above, a facility can include thousands of fans.
In another known procedure, maintenance personnel remove the front guard, blade, and rear guard individually, which are the dirty parts of this fan, but leave the motor attached to mount. These 3 pieces are then moved to the spray area and manually cleaned with conventional high pressure steam/hot water/soap spray. After parts are dry they are then moved back to their motors (which were left on their mounts) and reinstalled. Because the fan blade is removed from the guard using this method, it is subject to damage as is it being cleaned. Also, the blade frequently is "frozen" on to the shaft causing one to use a prop puller to assist in removing the blade. Further, either practice is very time consuming and extremely expensive, and usually performed as a 2 person operation.
The assignee of the present invention first addressed the cleaning problem with its quick assembly, hinged safety guard, with quick mounting ring. This allowed for much quicker and easier removal of the 3 dirtiest parts of the fan for individual, conventional cleaning: the front guard, the blade, and the rear guard. However, the blade still has to be removed to remove and clean the rear guard.